III
It was almighty hard luck, the way things had turned out for a man. When the only friend a man had was laid up with a busted laig and a sick wife. No “Red River Jig”. No fire to set by. No Pete to talk to and tell how comical that bank dude looked when he dropped. No warm grub. Only that bottle. Better drop past the cabin and fill a jug. When a man ain’t slept ner et he’d orter have a jug along to keep him alive.
He stopped at his cabin long enough to fill the jug. Then he pulled out. He rode into a Long X line camp. A slit eyed, frost blackened man who staggered a little when he walked. The two cowpunchers stared hard at him.
“Peter Peralta’s in bad shape. Broke a laig. His missus is dyin’. I’m ridin’ fer a doctor. One o’ you boys git over there and look after things.”
He wolfed some meat and beans and gave them a shot out of his jug. One of the cowpunchers was getting ready for the trip to Pete’s. Sam Graybull climbed back into the saddle and rode on.
The storm had quit. The stars glittered like white sparks against the clear sky. The moon pushed up over the ragged ridges. Sam Graybull swayed a little as he rode, half asleep, half awake, back along the trail to town.
He took some tobacco and rubbed it into his eyes to sting them open. Now and then he took a drink from the jug. Not as big a drink as he wanted. Just enough to keep a man alive. That grub made a man sleepy. A paunch full of meat always made a man sleepy. Almighty hard luck that a man couldn’t git off and lay down. For five minutes. Yeah. Five hours. Be froze stiff as a stick. Hadn’t he froze his feet thataway? Wouldn’t he a-died there only Pete come by? Hell, he was payin’ Pete back right now. A man paid his debts thataway. Took guts, too. But when a man’s got one friend on earth, he’d be a hell of a kind of man not to lend a hand. It took guts. Somethin’ Pete didn’t have. Pete was a chicken hearted cuss. With his wife and his fiddle. Never taken a chance. Never would get nowhere. Like a cow pasture. A muley cow. Well, no man had ever sawed Sam Graybull’s horns. No fence made ever held him. No jail, neither. Never bin ketched. Them as tried it had some hard luck. Have a drink. Damn that cork. A man’s hands stiff and numb. There she comes. Good whisky. Thawed a man’s belly. Fightin’ whisky.
Sam Graybull’s laugh grated on the silence of the winter night. There’d be fightin’ a-plenty if a man run into that fool posse. Sam took a beaded buckskin pouch and put into it the note to the doctor. Then he fastened the pouch around his neck outside his coat. He moved with a dogged, sluggish precision. Like a machine that needs oil. He lost one of his mittens. The right mitten. He put the other mitten on his right hand, leaving the left one bare. Sam Graybull’s right hand was his gun hand.
Out of the hills and onto the main road to town. Daylight now. Sleepy. Dozing in the saddle. Ridin’ that horse like he owned him. Payin’ off the only debt he owed to his only friend.
Yonder was Beaver Crick. Old gray wolf a-comin’ outa the bare willers. With a belly full of meat, headin’ fer a safe place to sleep it off. Sam never killed a wolf. Hell, he was a wolf, hisself. A he-wolf. A killer. No rabbit, like Pete Peralta. Pete, whinin’ over a busted laig. What’d he do if he had a .30-.40 slug in him and had to gouge it out with a jacknife? Sam Graybull had done that.